Clouds Hill | National Trust National Trust Clouds Hill, Lawrence's peaceful retreat from the hurly burly of army camp life National Trust/ James Dobson A cosy fire to keep out the autumnal chill at Clouds Hill National Trust/ Martin Stephen It's easy to see why Lawrence chose this cottage for a peaceful retreat National Trust Lawrence listened to music with his friends in the upstairs living room National Trust Images/ James Dobson The rural retreat of T. E. Lawrence Things to see and do Things to see and do + 3 other dates 11:00-16:30 Explore the place where Lawrence of Arabia lived. Find the clues and solve the puzzle to win a Cadbury chocolate prize. + 15 other dates 11:00-16:00 A fortnight of talks and displays exploring the life of T. E. Lawrence: from Lawrence of Arabia to T E Shaw. Want to join our team next season? Do you love working with people and have a genuine interest in our places and our work? We're currently recruiting Membership and Visitor Welcome Assistants for Clouds Hill, Hardy's Cottage and Max Gate next season.

For full details, follow this link to the National Trust jobs website and enter job reference IRC44308 in the search box. Places nearby Dorset's largest hill fort renowned for its downland wildlife Join Close The rural retreat of T. E. Lawrence 'I've a hut in a wood near camp wherein I spend my spare evenings' - the words of the legendary Lawrence of Arabia, about Clouds Hill. This tiny isolated brick and tile cottage in the heart of Dorset was the peaceful retreat of T. E. Lawrence ('Lawrence of Arabia'). The austere rooms are much as he left them and reflect his complex personality and close links with the Middle East, as detailed in a fascinating exhibition. Please note: Because the cottage is much as Lawrence left it, there is no electric light and we keep light levels low to protect the original contents. This adds to the authentic experience at the cottage, but some visitors may wish to time their visit to take advantage of the longer, lighter days of summer. Telephone King George V Road, Bovington, near Wareham, Dorset, BH20 7NQ By cycle Cycle route information On foot From Moreton you can pick up the Lawrence Trail to reach Clouds Hill.

To join the trail: with the church on your right and Moreton Tea Rooms on your left follow the lane onto the unmade track which leads to a footbridge over the River Frome. By train Wool 3½ miles; Moreton 3½ miles. Wool is on the mainline from London, Waterloo to Weymouth, Dorset. The station is served by taxis. Moreton is also on the Waterloo to Weymouth mainline. From the station walk north past the Frampton Arms (on your right). Turn right into Station Road which leads to Moreton village (Lawrence is buried in the graveyard here). From Moreton you can pick up the Lawrence Trail to reach Clouds Hill. To join the trail: with the church on your right and Moreton Tea Rooms on your left follow the lane onto the unmade track which leads to a footbridge over the River Frome. By road A35, from the west: From the A35, take the Tolpuddle Ball exit signposted Warmwell and Crossways. Turn left onto B3390. After approximately 3 miles, turn left at the crossroads, signposted Bovington Camp and Wareham.

A little after a mile, take the turning on the right and Clouds Hill is immediately on your left. A35, from the east: Exit the A35 at the Bere Regis roundabout - take the first exit, signposted Bere Regis, Milborne St Andrew and Bovington Camp. Continue, following the road around to the left. After 2.5 miles, turn right for Bovington, Tincleton and Tank Museum. Continue for just over a mile, then take the next left and Clouds Hill is immediately on your left. From Wareham: Head west on the A352, signposted Wool and Dorchester. Look for signs for the Tank Museum, turning right at the roundabout signposted Bovington and the Tank Museum. After passing the Tank Museum (on your right) drive through Bovington, and Clouds Hill is approximately one mile north on the right. Parking: Free £2.50 What is Gift Aid? Most of our places run the Gift Aid on Entry scheme at their admission points.

Under this scheme, if you're not a member you have the choice of two entry tickets: Gift Aid Admission or Standard admission If the place runs Gift Aid on Entry, we'll offer you the Gift Aid Admission prices. But it's entirely up to you which ticket you choose. If you want the Standard Admission instead, just let us know when you come to pay. Gift Aid Admission includes a 10 per cent or more voluntary donation. Gift Aid Admissions let us reclaim tax on the whole amount paid* — an extra 25 per cent — potentially a very significant boost to our places' funds. An extra £1 paid under the scheme can be worth over £3 to the National Trust as shown below: Payment of the additional percentage donation is entirely voluntary, so if you prefer to pay the standard admission please advise our reception staff at the till point. Clouds Hill, Dorset home of T.E Lawrence, "Lawrence of Arabia", writer, soldier and rebel - Clouds Hill Clouds Hill... Clouds Hill near Bovington is a great place to learn about literary giant and soldier T. E. Lawrence; better known to many as “Lawrence of Arabia”.

Enigmatic and enchanting, this tiny cottage is as intriguing and beguiling as the man who rescued this one-time woodsman’s cottage from ruin. Now owned by the National Trust, Clouds Hill is as good an introduction as any to the life and works of this fascinating man. Thomas Edward Lawrence was part of a generation that lived through extraordinary times. He went to extraordinary places. He undertook extraordinary deeds and, crucially, he lived to tell the tale. Born in the latter part of the 19th Century, Lawrence, like many of his ilk, got swept up in the carnage of the “Great War”. Two of his brothers were among the hundreds of thousands who died in the horror of the Western Front, but Lawrence’s own war was different and would become the stuff of legend. In the years before the “War to End Wars”, Lawrence studied history at Oxford and then worked and travelled as an archaeologist in Syria and what was then Palestine. There he learnt Arabic and got to know the Arabs and the lands they lived in. At the outbreak of war Lawrence joined the army and was sent by Military Intelligence to work in Cairo.

From here, Lawrence’s war would propel him from Captain to Colonel and from obscurity to international fame - whether he liked it or not. Clouds Hill forms part of the evidence that, in fact, he liked it not. Lawrence was a complicated and complex character. And some of that is mirrored in the hovel he chose to make his home in the latter part of his life. By modern standards it was a short life, dying as he did in a motorcycle accident a few hundred yards from Clouds Hill at the age of 46. But compared to many others of his generation, cut down by the war in their teens or twenties, his life might have seemed both full and enviably long. Lawrence certainly saw his share of hardship and conflict. Not in the trench warfare of the Western Front, but as a direct consequence of it. The War in Europe was consuming men and resources at a phenomenal rate, leaving little spare to fight the enemy elsewhere. Thus Lawrence hatched a plan to raise a rebellion of the Arab tribes against the Ottoman-Turks in the Middle East. It was not an easy task. First he had to try to get the disparate tribes to pull together, many of whom didn’t get on.

He had to find a strategy that allowed his lightly armed rebels to be effective against organised and properly equipped regulars of the Turkish army. And he had to do it in a way that didn’t result in the massacre of the tribesmen who came to help, either as volunteers or in return for seized loot or British gold. Lawrence told his side of the story in “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom” some of which was written at Clouds Hill. It is a story of great daring do, of a guerilla war against trains and railways: a litany of bridges blown, engines mined and stations destroyed. It is a story of how an empire and its armies were, bit by bit, harried, starved of resources and driven to confusion by a series of attacks that came hard, unexpected and often far behind the enemy lines. It is a story that makes clear that none of it would have been possible but for the skills, local knowledge and courage of Lawrence and his Arab companions.

“The Seven Pillars of Wisdom” sets out how, together, they managed their camels and lived off the land to an extent that none in the regular British Army thought possible and none in the regular Turkish army were ready for, allowing them to range more widely and freely than both their allies and their enemies expected. Thus, bit by bit, success by success, Lawrence and his rebels engendered growing confidence from other tribes and from the regular army. And a growing fear within the enemy. As belief grew among the locals that Lawrence’s strategy and tactics worked, the rebellion swelled to a fully-fledged Arab movement. While growing confidence in him among the regular army provided more rations, arms, camels and the gold to buy more. It also resulted in the odd aircraft and several armoured cars. The conclusion was an all out assault of Arab rebels and army regulars that successfully pushed the Ottoman-Turks from territories they had held for centuries. “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom” shows many sides of Lawrence’s often contrasting personality. At times he is proud and arrogant, at others full of self-doubt and self-loathing.

Sometimes he relishes in the successes of his companions and his camel-mounts and at others he expresses his reluctance, even disgust, to be involved at all. This internal conflict may stem from the stresses of leadership and long periods of living on the sharpest of knife-edges. It may also be part and parcel of the general horrors of war that he experienced and recounts: from being tortured to shooting his own comrades to prevent further suffering. All this on top of the daily privations necessary to live in all seasons in some of the harshest of environments. Although some dispute the accuracy of parts of Lawrence’s story, there’s more than enough in what’s unchallenged to drive anyone to the ragged edge of sanity. Add to this the fact that Lawrence felt he had made promises to the Arabs about self-rule that his Government did not keep and it becomes less surprising that, at the height of his power, success and influence he chose to hide himself away. He turned down various high honours and enlisted in the RAF as a lowly aircraftsman under the assumed name of John Hume Ross. When he was found out by the press, he hid himself again, this time in the Tank Corp at Bovington under the name of T.

E. Shaw. It was then he bought and renovated Clouds Hill as a retreat and a place to write. The cottage is tiny. It has few windows and sits tucked away on heathland at the edge of the Bovington Tank ranges. Lawrence re-roofed it, put in a bathroom and decorated it in a practical and unique style. Modern DIYers will marvel at what has been done with four such tiny rooms. Rooms that once would have housed a workman and his family. The main downstairs chamber has a large bed at its centre and is surrounded by books. The bathroom is interestingly and tastefully tiled with cork around the walls. And the bunk room upstairs is a masterpiece in damp-proofing and the use of available light, being “papered” in aluminium foil. The other upstairs room is the music room, where Lawrence did much of his writing. Clouds Hill is probably not a visit for kids. It is too small and there is too little for them to do. But for adults and teenage students with literary interests, this is a very small place in which one can easily get lost in thought for hours. For existing fans of Lawrence it will be a pilgrimage.

For those new to him and his work, it could easily be a catalyst that sparks a new interest to read and find out more about the fascinating life of this fascinating man. It is in the nature of such great and celebrated people that every aspect of their lives are pawed over by the press and academics. Lawrence, Shaw or Ross was a man who mixed with, and counted as friends, some of the greatest people of his age. Yet he undoubtedly made enemies too. He was the illegitimate son of what would in those days have been a scandalous relationship between an already married man and a governess, neither called Lawrence. And his own “private” life remains the subject of great speculation even today. Ultimately, Lawrence was a truly gifted, if at times insecure, man, asked to do a near impossible job in the most gruelling of conditions. That he did it well brought him unwanted fame, which he tried to shake off in this hidden corner of Dorset, where he also lost his life in a simple road accident on his Brough Superior motorbike.

After a life so full of action, pain and torment; a life that brought fame and helped to change the course of one of the greatest conflicts ever known; perhaps this near humdrum passing of this great man makes the Greek inscription chiselled by him into the lintel above the door at Clouds Hill all the more apt. Translated it states simply: “Why worry?” Though Lawrence the man is dead and buried at nearby Moreton , Lawrence the legend lives on. Even in death, conspiracy theorists speculated he had been assassinated and some believe it still. ​ Perhaps the normality of his death contrasted too starkly with the dash and dare of his life. Either way, the demise of T. E. Lawrence laid to rest a great literary talent, a brave and influential soldier and a troubled soul. Though Lawrence the man is dead and buried at nearby Moreton , Lawrence the legend lives on.

Even in death, conspiracy theorists speculated he had been assassinated and some believe it still....​" Click for information from the National Trust's website Clouds Hill (Wareham, England): Top Tips Before You Go - TripAdvisor “Very small house with lots of photos and memorabilia of, and taken by, T E Lawrence” Reviewed 17 October 2016 Very small house - one bedroom downstairs plus bathroom. One main room upstairs with small pantry/guest bedroom to the side. The house is exceptionaly dark and eyes take a while to adjust. Less dark upstairs so I would do this first and then come downstairs where it is very dark and needs a torch (provided) till your eyes adjust. Bedroom... More Helpful? National Trust Scones: Clouds Hill National Trust Scones A blog dedicated to finding the best scones at National Trust properties around the UK. Sunday, 17 May 2015 Clouds Hill If there was an award for National Trust Property That Doesn't Look Very Interesting But Turns Out To Be Brilliant then Clouds Hill would win it. And I'm sorry if that offends anyone but it's true.

When I looked up Clouds Hill on the National Trust website, this is the first thing I saw: Remember, this is the National Trust. Clouds Hill could have been a castle. It could have been a manor house. It could have been a hill. In fact it's a little hovel with no windows. But I've watched enough episodes of A Touch of Frost to know that you have to look beneath the surface of these things. WHY, I asked myself, would the National Trust own a little windowless cottage? The answer is Lawrence of Arabia. The great TE Lawrence used this little place as his rural retreat from 1923 until his untimely death in 1935: And in fact, until today, that is all I knew about TE Lawrence - that he was killed in a motorbike accident.

Here are some other facts about him and Clouds Hill: He was born in 1888 at Tremadoc in Wales After university in 1915, he was posted to the British Military Intelligence office in Cairo He became an expert on Arabia and in 1922 he wrote the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, an account of his experiences He agreed to write a shorter version of this text while he was enlisted in the Tank Corps, which was stationed near Bovington in Dorset He rented a little ramshackle woodsman's cottage nearby called Clouds Hill, where he could write and listen to music He received many illustrious visitors there, including EM Forster and Thomas Hardy He returned to the RAF in 1925 and was posted to India It was during this time that he bought Clouds Hill, loaning it out to friends In 1929 he returned and began remodelling the house - it was completed in 1934 and remains the same today He was killed half a mile up the road in 1935 when he swerved his motorbike to avoid some cyclists on the way back from the post office The rooms at Clouds Hill are fascinating.

It somehow manages to be austere and yet cosy at the same time. My favourite feature was the enormous gramophone - Lawrence was a music buff apparently and had the latest hi-fi equipment. You can just about see it on the right in this very poor photo: There were no scones at Clouds Hill - there was no anything at Clouds Hill - but it didn't matter at all. It's a fascinating little place that gives an insight to a very interesting man and I highly recommend it. Clouds Hill: 5 out of 5 Scones: 0 out of 5 (there aren't any, but I knew that) Posted by Clouds Hill (Lawrence of Arabia's Cottage) - 1120423| Historic England Clouds Hill (Lawrence of Arabia's Cottage) List Entry Summary This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.

Name: Clouds Hill (Lawrence of Arabia's Cottage) List entry Number: 1120423 Clouds Hill Cottage, Clouds Hill, Wareham, Dorset, BH20 7NQ The building may lie within the boundary of more than one authority. County: Dorset National Park: Not applicable to this List entry. Grade: II* Date of most recent amendment: 14-Dec-2015 Legacy System Information The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system. Legacy System: LBS UID: 108706 Asset Groupings This list entry does not comprise part of an Asset Grouping. Asset Groupings are not part of the official record but are added later for information. List entry Description Summary of Building A cottage built in 1808, formerly a forester’s or labourer's cottage, largely reconstructed by T E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia, 1888-1935) for himself, 1922-33; together with Lawrence’s garage, built in 1930.

Reasons for Designation Clouds Hill, a small cottage of 1808, largely reconstructed 1922-34 by T E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) for himself, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons: * Historic association: the cottage was the only adult home of T E Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, one of the most significant and influential leaders and strategists of the First World War and its aftermath, and also an important writer, who worked on his books at Clouds Hill; * Architectural interest: Lawrence reconstructed the cottage, an early C19 building which was largely derelict in 1922, to suit his own purposes and to his precise specifications, designing and in some cases even constructing the fittings and fixed furnishings himself, creating an intimate, restful place redolent of his personality and interests; * Historic interest: the cottage acted as something of a salon in the 1920s and early 1930s, with Lawrence entertaining fellow writers and artists including Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, Gilbert Spencer and Augustus John.

History The cottage known as Clouds Hill was built in 1808 as a forester’s or labourer’s cottage on the Moreton estate, which had been in the Frampton family since the C14. The cottage, on Cloud’s Hill, had been derelict for some years by 1922, in which year Sgt Arthur Knowles of the Royal Tank Corps, stationed at nearby Bovington Camp, rented a parcel of land which included the cottage. He built a bungalow for his family on the adjacent plot, and under the terms of the lease, was required to make the cottage habitable. Knowles had just begun the job of restoring the cottage, stripping the derelict elements out to leave the walls and central stack, when Private T E Shaw, also stationed at Bovington, came across it whilst walking in the woods, and arranged to rent it from Knowles for 2/6 a week and take on responsibility for its repair, in order to create a space away from the ranks where he could read, write and listen to music.

Shaw was one of the pseudonyms of T E Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia, one of the most significant figures to emerge from the First World War, with an international reputation. Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888-1935) was famed for his role in the Middle East, shaping the region in the period, as well as a soldier, author and intelligence officer. His parents’ circumstances meant that the family lead a peripatetic life in his youth – his father, Thomas Chapman, had left his first wife and four daughters to live with his children’s governess, Sarah Jenner. The couple lived together as Mr and Mrs Lawrence, though they never married, and raised their own family of five sons, including Thomas Edward, known as Ned. After the young Ned discovered the family secret, there were tensions between the boy and his parents. By the time he was 20, and reading modern history at Jesus College in Oxford, where the family lived, their differences were largely resolved by the building of a bungalow at the bottom of their garden in Polstead Road, where Ned could live alone, study, and follow his own daily routine.

His interest in archaeology, antiquity and military architecture took him on tours of the continent and as far as the crusader castles of Lebanon and Syria, which became the subject of his dissertation, later published. From 1911-14, Lawrence, having secured a financial award from Magdalen College, Oxford worked on the British Museum’s excavations at Carchemish in Syria; not only did he gain experience in excavation but became involved in the politics of the region for the first time. The time he spent in Syria formed his conviction that the Arabs must be allowed to secure their independence from the Ottoman Empire without the need to sacrifice their traditions and culture. Lawrence spent his military service during the First World War in the Middle East, firstly as an intelligence officer, gathering and assessing information, but also working on strategy and developing policy. From 1916, he was instrumental in the Arab revolt, an uprising against the Turkish, whose ambitions for the Ottoman Empire would have wiped out the traditional way of life which Lawrence so valued.

Support for the revolt suited the British, frustrating as it did French imperial ambitions and growing Indian plans for colonisation in the region, and Lawrence successfully persuaded his commanders of the potential and importance of Arab forces to delivering British regional strategy. The revolt reached its most significant point in Lawrence’s famed action against ‘Aqabah in 1917, which followed his difficult and dangerous trip to meet with and persuade tribal chiefs to join the Allied cause. His war continued in a flurry of astonishing, often dangerous and rash actions with Arab forces, often without the benefit of backing from the Allied military, which nevertheless continued to achieve much in the British and Allied cause. By 1918, Lawrence had earned the DSO, and his action with Arab forces culminated in the race to Damascus, whose possession by the Arabs he saw as an important bargaining point in achieving self-determination after the end of hostilities. The fact that the territory was initially given over to French rule caused him much anguish, as he felt that he had betrayed the trust of the forces with whom he had fought.

Lawrence documented the Arab revolt, and his pivotal part in it, in a memoir, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which was an emotional, literary account that is generally accepted as a faithful account of an extraordinary series of events. His fame and reputation began to be made before its publication, though, following a six-month run at The Royal Opera House of a slide and film show by an American journalist of the adventures during the war of “The Uncrowned King of Arabia”. The romantic image of Lawrence in Arab dress in the desert took hold in the public imagination, jaded and traumatised by the decidedly unromantic experience of the war on the western front. Though personally embarrassing to Lawrence, he was happy to use it as publicity to continue to lobby for the Arab cause. Following his demobilisation in 1919, he concentrated on his writing, but the following year, Winston Churchill, as colonial secretary, invited Lawrence to join his Middle East department, where Lawrence was instrumental in brokering a permanent settlement in the area, involving the creation of many of the modern Middle Eastern territories, including Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Palestine; he also supported the creation of Israel.

Although initially client territories with British-led armies, Lawrence believed this was the right path towards Arab self-government, the goal he had always worked for. In 1922, now a well-known figure, Lawrence sought a return to military life, and enlisted, incognito, in the RAF under the pseudonym John Hume Ross, his acceptance having been approved at the highest level in the government. Despite precautions, his true identity was uncovered by the press within months, and he was discharged, but re-enlisted with the tank corps in the following year as T E Shaw. After a failed suicide attempt two years later, he was transferred to the RAF where he stayed until 1935. It was whilst stationed at Bovington Camp that Lawrence took on Clouds Hill, situated on the Moreton estate of his cousins, the Frampton family. He sought to create a haven he could use as a retreat from barrack life and a place in which he could work on the revision of the subscription edition of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom; however from early on, it is clear that he was planning to make it his home once he retired from the RAF.

The work was deliberately unelaborate but well-made, influenced by the handicrafts and practicality of the Arts and Crafts movement he had admired in the work of William Morris and John Ruskin as a young man. In 1923 he found himself short of funds, and sold the Meccan dagger he had worn with his Arab garb throughout the revolt of 1916-18, to a friend for £125, enabling him to pay for work to the roof. The remaining elements of the historic roof were oak and chestnut, but for the sake of economy, Lawrence’s repairs were in deal, creosoted to match. The skylight was added and a partition wall in the upper room was removed. By 1927, only the first floor was habitable; Lawrence used the larger room as a living, reading and writing room with a camp-bed in the smaller room for his frequent guests, and the larger ground-floor room used for the storage of firewood and timber.

When Lawrence was absent from Dorset at the RAF Cadet College in Cranwell, Kent from 1927, he left it in the hands of Sergeant Knowles, who made changes to allow the cottage to be let to raise funds for further improvements. The ground floor room was made into a kitchen/living room, though Lawrence always intended to, as he put it, “re-paganise” the place when he was able to settle back at Clouds Hill. Oak bookshelves to Lawrence’s specification were fitted in the ground-floor main room in 1929-30, and Lawrence moved his library to the ground floor, adding a large day bed under the window and removing the kitchen range in favour of living largely off tinned food, a legacy from his ascetic life in military service. The large first-floor room became a panelled music room, and a painting of the view from Clouds Hill, painted by Gilbert Spencer for Lawrence, was fitted in the gable end. The room was furnished with the help of Florence, the wife of Thomas Hardy, with whom Lawrence developed a close friendship. In the early 1930s, Lawrence set about completing the two smaller rooms.

The ground-floor gained a bathroom, with a bath and hot-water boiler, which was completed in 1933. The walls were clad the following year in cork tiles to insulate the room. The first-floor room which had been used to store food and as an occasional guest bedroom was fitted out with a cabin bed Lawrence made himself: “a slip of a roomlet upstairs in my cottage – too small for any manufactured bed: so I built into it a bunk, of ship-cabin type, with drawers beneath for my clothes. A rough job I made of it but it works.” He wrote this in a letter to a friend in Scotland, asking him to source a ship’s porthole for the room; an example salvaged from the broken-up HMS Tiger was duly installed in the spring of 1935. The walls were covered in aluminium foil to improve the light in the room and to guard against damp. Lawrence loved the cottage and its seclusion, and wrote fondly of it to friends throughout the ten years he spent there.

“I must visit my cottage, for that half-ruin and wholly unfinished place must be cleaned up enough, by this winter, to act ‘home’ to me in the spring...it should be a safe feeling, to have a house to live in, without rule, (I have never had any sort of house of my own before).” “My cottage is finished, inside and out, so far as alien hands can finish it – and I feel rooted now, whenever I pass its door. Such a lovely little place, and so plain. It is ingenious, comfortable, bare and restful: and cheap to maintain.” Lawrence also added a garage to the cottage, to house his Brough Superior motorcycles, for which he had a strong enthusiasm.

Lawrence’s little cottage became something of a salon, and visitors to Clouds Hill included the writers EM Forster (1879-1970); Edward Garnett (1868-1937); Robert Graves (1895-1985); Thomas Hardy (1840-1928); George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950); Henry Williamson (1895-1977); and Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967). Amongst the artists who visited were Augustus John (1878-1961); William Roberts (1895-1980); and Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979). Lawrence had close friendships in particular with George Bernard Shaw and his wife Charlotte (1857-1943), and Thomas Hardy and his wife Florence (1879-1937).

In addition to The Seven Pillars, Lawrence wrote his observations on RAF life in 1927, published as The Mint; and published a translation of Homer’s Odyssey in 1932, each of which he spent time working on at Clouds Hill. The profits from The Odyssey enabled him to buy the cottage outright. Lawrence always intended to live in the cottage after his term in the RAF, and when in early 1935 he eventually retired from a career distinguished not only by his First World War experiences and his role in the creation of the modern Middle Eastern nations, but later for his part in the development of seaplanes and air-sea rescue craft, it was to Clouds Hill. However, his retirement was to be tragically short – riding his beloved Brough motorcycle close to the cottage in May 1935, he swerved to avoid two cyclists, and was thrown from the machine. He died from his injuries five days later at Bovington Camp. He was buried close by, in the churchyard of the church of St Nicholas at Moreton, but a bust by Eric Kennington was placed in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral.

There was genuine national grief at his loss, and such was his stature in the public imagination that it was rumoured that, like King Arthur, he had not died but was sleeping, awaiting a time when his nation needed him again. Clouds Hill was gifted to The National Trust in 1936 by Arnold, Lawrence’s brother, and is preserved largely as Lawrence left it, unaltered apart from the addition of cast-iron rainwater goods in the mid-C20, and some conservative repairs. It is now open to the public. Details A cottage built in 1808, formerly a forester’s or labourer’s cottage, largely reconstructed by T E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia, 1888-1935) for himself, 1922-34; and Lawrence’s garage, built in 1930. MATERIALS The cottage is constructed from red brick painted white, with clay tile roof, brick stack and cast-iron rainwater goods. PLAN A single-depth, two-room plan with one larger and one smaller room to either side of an off-centre stair. EXTERIOR The cottage has a single storey and attic, and is of four unequal bays.

The roof has one hipped and one half-hipped end, with a central rectangular ridge stack built in brick, with a drip course. The main elevation to the south is blind except for the entrance doorway, to the right of centre. The plank door is set in a timber frame, below a stone lintel with a pedimented stone lintel carved by Lawrence with a Greek motto, translated roughly as “Why Worry” or I don’t care”. There is a three-pane roof light set into the roof slope in the left-hand bay. The eastern end is half-hipped, with a small ship’s porthole brought from the broken-up HMS Tiger to the house by Lawrence, set under the eaves. The rear elevation has three gabled half-dormers spaced irregularly along the roof. The left-hand bay has a tall window under a lintel similar to that over the door; all the windows in this elevation are multi-paned timber casements in pegged frames.

The western end has a gabled half-dormer with a wide timber casement window, above a three-light, stone mullioned window with straight chamfers; the metal-framed lights are fixed to right and left, with the central one pivoting. INTERIOR The entrance door gives way to a lobby with the stair directly ahead and doorways to the rooms to either side. The lobby has light wood panelling. To the left, via a framed leather hanging as a door, is the Reading Room, the larger of the two ground floor rooms, with an exposed, chamfered beam with run-outs and wide floorboards. The inner wall has a high brick fireplace with a segmental-arched opening and steel hood made by Lawrence, and a timber mantel shelf. The wall around the fireplace is panelled in a continuation of the panelling from the lobby. The other walls are taken up with simple oak bookshelves, each with a small cupboard at floor level. The space is dominated by the day-bed, fixed under the window; a simple structure of timber with dovetailed corners, covered in leather. The other ground-floor room is the bathroom, with a four-panelled door, its walls lined in cork tiles.

The bath is a large enamelled tub with white panels. A concealed door gives access to the understairs cupboard which houses the boiler. The stairs give access to a tiny first floor landing with a window to the rear. The rooms either side are each accessed up two steps. To the right, through a plank door, is the bunk room. The external walls are lined in aluminium foil. Built into the alcove under the front slope of the roof is Lawrence’s bunk, a cabin bed in varnished timber designed to fit his proportions, with a sleeping cot above drawers for clothes. A salvaged porthole from the First World War battle cruiser HMS Tiger is set in the gable end. The inner wall is matchboarded and has a two-panelled door to a food-storage cupboard. The larger first-floor room is the music room, where Lawrence entertained friends. The first floor is largely contained within the attic space, and the walls therefore rise only a short distance, but are set with square panelling, which continues from the landing.

Above, the roof, which slopes on all sides, has its structure exposed; the main truss is a simple A-frame of paired principal rafters and collar with a yoke and single purlins, dating from the original cottage of 1808; the majority of the rest of the roof structure was replaced in deal during the 1922-33 repairs. The chimney rises through the room and has a small, segmental-arched fireplace opening, above which is a timber mantel shelf, set at the right height to allow Lawrence to lean on it. An Arts and Crafts style candle sconce designed by Lawrence sits over the collar of the truss. Set in the panelling in the gable over the window in the hipped end of the room is a landscape painting of the view from Clouds Hill on board or panel, painted in 1925 by Gilbert Spencer, RA (1892-1979) for Lawrence. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES The cottage is approached via a path of red tile, loosely set on an earthen base.

The GARAGE to the south of the cottage was built in 1930 to house Lawrence’s Brough motorcycle, as a result of an accident on which Lawrence died in 1935. The building is rendered and painted blockwork with a thatched roof, rendered internally with a recently-boarded ceiling. The National Trust has recently constructed a new admissions building to the north of the cottage, a single-storey structure which is not of interest.

Selected Sources Brown, M, The Letters of T E Lawrence, (1988) Garnett, D, The Letters of T E Lawrence of Arabia, (1938) Newman, J, Pevsner, n, Buildings of England: Dorset, (2002), 430 The National Trust, , Clouds Hill (guidebook), (2003) Websites Lawrence James 'Lawrence, Thomas Edward [Lawrence of Arabia] (1888-1935), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition, January 2011, accessed 14/10/2015 from T E Lawrence at Clouds Hill, accessed 13/11/2014 from National Grid Reference: SY8237690910, SY8237890887 Map © Crown Copyright and database right 2017. All rights reserved. Ordnance Survey Licence number 100024900. © British Crown and SeaZone Solutions Limited 2017. All rights reserved. Licence number 102006.006.

Use of this data is subject to Terms and Conditions . The above map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. For a copy of the full scale map, please see the attached PDF - 1120423 .pdf The PDF will be generated from our live systems and may take a few minutes to download depending on how busy our servers are. We apologise for this delay. This copy shows the entry on 08-Jan-2017 at 07:15:29. End of official listing BBC - Dorset - History - The mystery of Lawrence of Arabia You are in: Dorset > History > Local History > The mystery of Lawrence of Arabia Colonel T.E Lawrence pictured in Arabia The mystery of Lawrence of Arabia Stories of the Middle Eastern exploits of Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, or Lawrence of Arabia, made him a legend, but his hope for a quiet retirement in Dorset ended in tragedy - and conspiracy theories. Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, or Lawrence of Arabia, made Dorset his home in his final years. Born in 1888, T.E. Lawrence was a soldier with extensive experience of the Middle East.

When World War I broke out he was made an intelligence officer in Cairo, working with secret rebels against Turkey who ruled the region and were allies of the Germans. T.E Lawrence on his Brough Superior SS80 Also a writer, Lawrence's memoirs The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, documenting his Middle Eastern experiences, helped make him a high profile figure all over the world, hence becoming known as Lawrence of Arabia. A house in Clouds Hill Seeking a quieter life, and by now living in a small house in Clouds Hill in Wareham, he left the military in February 1935. But his retirement was cut short when he was killed in a motorcycle accident in May 1935. Lawrence was riding his much-loved Brough motorbike, on his way from Bovington Camp to Clouds Hill, when he swerved to avoid two boys on bicycles. Despite receiving prompt medical attention at nearby Bovington army camp, he died a few days later. 'A mysterious black car' Lawrence's death at the age of 46 only added to the myth: stories of a 'mysterious black car' at the scene prompted some to think there was more to his death than just a tragic accident.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill attended his funeral and was said to have described him as "one of the greatest beings alive in this time". Memorial stone at Clouds Hill Lawrence is buried in Moreton, and a famous stone effigy of Lawrence can be seen at St Martin's Church in Wareham. A small memorial by the road side at Clouds Hill marks the area of the accident. Disproving the rumours Lawrence was a well known local figure, and was often seen around the Wareham area. The town's interest in him continues to this day, and its museum has an exhibition dedicated to Lawrence, and Michael O'Hara, its honorary curator, has helped put together a DVD looking at Lawrence's life - and death - in Dorset. By speaking to local people with connections to Lawrence, some of whom haven't previously spoken publicly about him before, Michael says they've managed to disprove some of the rumours about Lawrence's death. An illustration from his memoirs He says: "There are lots of conspiracy theories and myths surrounding his death [eg that he committed suicide, or was murdered by government agents], and one of them was that no one was allowed to talk about the accident afterwards.

"We spoke to Joe Fletcher, who is the brother of Frank Fletcher, one of the boys involved in the accident. "Frank is no longer with us, but Joe has a letter from the then Commander of Bovington Camp to Frank and Joe's father, saying that they were allowed to talk to the press about the accident, but not about his job at the army camp. "So that blows the theory that the accident was hushed up out of the water." 'An enigma' Michael says there's as much interest in T.E. Lawrence now as there always has been - in the man, his life, and his work. Michael O'Hara, Wareham Town Musuem He says: "The problems in the Middle East today all stem from the post-World War I years and the actions he was involved in, in 1915. That still has relevance today. "Lawrence is an enigma. It's the ongoing mystery of this very private person [that keeps me interested]. "He's certainly one of the twentieth century's first major celebrities."

Question: The National Trust property Clouds Hill in Dorset was the home of which military man and writer?
Answer: T E LAWRENCE